


The Best Defense

by LittleMissPixieStix



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Abuse, Blood, Child Abuse, Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-14
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-13 21:10:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5717263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleMissPixieStix/pseuds/LittleMissPixieStix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Starting from when Scout was a child, follow his life as he grows up and slowly learns what he feels truly is The Best Defense.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best Defense

**Author's Note:**

> Consider this an AU considering we know very little about Scout's father. Be forewarned there is some blood, death, and physical abuse to be found down below. I don't know if the violence down below is considered GRAPHIC, but I checked that box just to be safe. If you're expecting truly graphic stuff, you might be a wee bit disappointed. Also consider this an experiment with a slightly different writing style. Also also consider that I used the word "considered" far too much in this paragraph.
> 
> Originally posted on Tumblr: http://littlemissfemscout.tumblr.com/post/130406819507/the-best-defense  
> Likes and reblogs are appreciated, but by no means required.

****

He was five.  The quiet in his Boston home was serene, the world was peaceful.  His brothers were old enough to be out with friends, enjoying the sunshine and warm weather while it lasted.  When he was old enough, he’d be out there, enjoying the game of stickball with them.  For now, he’d stay inside with his mother and his teddy bear, helping out as best his small self could inside, until the warm pool of sunshine from the late afternoon sun lured the small boy into a comfortable nap.

His eyelids had been drooping, he had been sucking his thumb quietly, laying on his teddy bear as he slowly fell into a small nap.  The door slammed opened, and the loud thudding footsteps, caused by large boots on large feet, startled him awake.  There was talking in the kitchen, loud talking, between his parents, which soon quieted down.  This time, the storm had been short.

He was nine.  The house used to be cleaner, but with eight boys in the house, a mother could only do so much to keep things straight.   He was on the floor, working on homework due after the weekend was through, struggling through his equations and mathematics that his class had learned just the day before.  His buck teeth nibbled on his pencil contemplating and playing with numbers through his mind, wanting to impress his mother by doing the work all by himself.

Not even all this pondering could distract him from the shouting match taking place in the kitchen.  Instead of writing down and working on his problems, he scribbled nonsense on the paper, chaotic squiggles that symbolized nothing and everything at the same time.  Shouting matches were like sailing on rough waters, they were choppy, caused waves, but it would pass, slowly quieting down and giving way to calm waters, like it always did.  Except this time, it was different.  The shouting was stopped abruptly by the sound of a loud, harsh slap and quiet, high, gasp.

He was thirteen.  He saw the world through black and blue eyes and he hated it all.  He no longer aspired to impress his mother, but only to protect her as much as a boy of his age could do.  Speaking out kept her from getting hit, but resulted in him receiving the punch instead, and that was a sacrifice he was willing to make.  Anything so she wouldn’t cry anymore.  He’d take all of the pain away from her that he could.  She didn’t deserve any of it, she didn’t.  He hated that man.

The house was like a never-ending storm.  There was always a low rumble of thunder surrounding them, and at any moment it could blow into a rain of shouting, fueled by alcohol, and filled with thunderous claps of whatever that man chose to take his anger out on.  Sometimes it was the shrill shattering of plates or bottles, other times it was the deep sound of wall having another hole added, or the sound of cabinets being slammed shut or ripped off their hinges.  But more and more often, it was the sound of skin on skin, another slap or punch being inflicted on her being.  And more and more often, he was there to intercept, to deflect the the raging cloudburst his way by speaking out against the force of it, and giving her a chance to breathe in the eye of it while he took the brunt of it.  She wouldn’t let him take it or long, but he felt that any damage he took was some that she didn’t, and that thought was enough to satisfy him and make him continue with this painful game of tag.  He was learning well how to protect himself with just his arms, a fake sort of karate that helped him feel just a little bit stronger, even against a force twice as tall and three times as large.

He was seventeen.  He was close to dropping out of school, because he didn’t see any reason for it.  What good did learning do when you could make your point known through fists and pain?  He wanted to be stronger, he wanted both him and his mom to be stronger.  Flinching didn't’t become either of them.  Striking that man back only resulted in worse pain, they had learned this quickly, so all they could do was hold their arms up and try to block the blows until that man grew tired and found somewhere else to take his anger out.

He was out of the house more and more, and he was running with the wrong crowds, partying in the wrong places, drinking the wrong drinks.  The taste of alcohol in his mouth was bitter, but the dizzy relief it brought made it worth the disgusting taste.  It helped him relax and it filled the world with color, but the tints were wrong.  Nothing looked right anymore, not even when he was drunk.  He soon realized that all the drink did was change the the world looked for a few minutes, but it was all still the same.  It was the same as spray painting a dog crap, it may sparkle like gold, but it was still shit.  He stopped drinking soon after realizing that.  Someone still needed him, and if he was going to help stop the storm, then he needed to be able to see the world properly, as gray as it was, and be ready to help properly defend.

He was twenty one.  A high school diploma was in his dresser drawer, and a community college baseball jacket hung in the closet, baseball having been his only reason to succeed marginally at academics.  His room was a mess, his house was a mess, his life was.  There was no point in trying to clean any of it up; it would all come tumbling out of the closet, back into a heap of a mess on the floor despite how hard he pushed and slammed the door shut.  He didn’t plan on cleaning life up for himself anytime soon, but he was about to clean up someone else’s, someone else who deserved it so much, more than they knew.

There was a crash downstairs, and he grabbed his bat, one that he dared call lucky, and dashed down the stairs.  She was fighting back, she had been for a while, even if it meant she was hurt more, because she had grown tired of being controlled by fear by that man.  It was only recently that he had realized how small his mother was, now that he had grown from a boy into a man himself.  Her formerly towering form was now only reaching his neck, as he was a head above her, what he had seen as her powerful form had shoulders that were now narrower than his, hands that were smaller than his.  She had done so much to protect him over the years, as he had grown from man to boy, and he was going to make it so she didn’t have to cry black or blue tears anymore.  

All she would have to do would be to help him clean up a sea of red after.

His steps behind the man were swift, and the crack of the bat against that man’s head was satisfyingly swifter.  The sight of their tormenter, someone who was supposed to have been there for the both of them, falling to the ground made him feel like the biggest man around.  His mother stepped back as he brought the bat down once, twice, three times, once for every single year they had suffered under that man’s reign of pain-filled terror.  By the end of it, his potential baseball career was ruined, the carpet was ruined, his mom had sunk down to her knees in shock, and, most importantly, that man was a heap of a mess of dead on the floor.  There was no shoving this mess into a closet, it was out there on the floor for them both to see.

The bat felt amazing in his hand, even as blood dripped down them both, down the length of the bat, down his clothes and face.  He looked towards his mother, who also had blood dripping down her face, wanting for her to take her hand away from her mouth and say something to him, to say anything to her son.  

Was she proud of him?  Was she finally proud of him?  It had taken him twenty one years, but, after playing baseball long enough and living in hell, he had finally figured it out.  The best defense was a good offense.

He was twenty five.  That man had been dead for years, his mother had found a gentleman now, in ever sense of the word.  He had moved to a job out in the desert, a job where he killed people with his bat, a job that made him wonderfully powerful, but despite that, that fear inside him still lived on.  Even as strong as he felt as a man, there was still a small, scared boy inside of him, one that had been trained to flinch, protect his face, and be ready for a fight whenever he was scared, whenever something suddenly startled him in the time between fights.  

Those reactions garnered a few looks from team mates at times, both look so pity, confusion, or amusement, but they didn’tunderstand.  They couldn’t. Out here, self-defense was all he had.  No one was going to protect himself except for himself.  He didn’t expect anyone else to understand it, and he didn’t see the point of explaining anything.  Compared to where he had come from, what he had lived through, this war-zone was nothing.  Nothing.  Nothing he couldn’t handle, nothing he couldn’t protect himself from.  

He already knew what the best defense was, and it was one that ended with him covered in his opponents blood, and he would’t have it any other way.


End file.
